Destiny's Story Isn't All That Complicated...

As long as you totally watch this 14 minute video explaining everything. If you don't? Good luck sorting through all that Grimoire nonsense.

A confession: I have literally no idea what's going on in Destiny. I also had no clue what was going on in Halo since about halfway through the second game, but I loved it all the same. Bungie, to my mind, have never been master story tellers. They are masters at making it rewarding as all hell to shoot things, so I tend to focus on that stuff: the shooting of things with the multiple different guns and whatnot.

Still, like Vaati's videos on Dark Souls, sometimes it's valuable to get some insight into why you're doing all this shooting, and who you are shooting at. Sometimes it's kinda cool to get access to insights you might otherwise have ignored.

I guess that's what this video is. It's Destiny for dummies. Or those who just don't really care all that much. Either way, it's worth a watch.

Comments

I dislike how everyone wants the story spoon-fed to them.
I love the games which have a rich story, or with a subtle story which lets me interpret it at I please, Destiny is one of the latter, a game which I enjoyed constructing the story as I progressed.

It's not really that people want the story spoon-fed to them, they just want something a little more elegant than someone dipping a ladle into the plot bucket and then dumping the resulting slop onto their plates with a "You'll eat what you're given and if you want the rest of your story, go to the restaurant down the road."

But I still have to disagree. Destiny has received so much criticism, but I don't see why. I didn't listen to any hype or media about destiny. My girlfriend bought it for my birthday, so I sat there and played it. And fell in love with it. I found the story to be great. The thing is, your character has been dead, they don't know what's happening, you become a guardian, just like everyone else. Why should you get special treatment? The reason nothing is explained is because its immersive. I feel like I'm fighting alongside 1000's of other guardians, and I think that's what they were aiming at. A game where you're not the main character.

Yeah I couldn't say that this game felt 'more immersive' because my character and myself had no fucking clue what was going on. What exactly is 'immersive' about waking up after being dead for god knows how long, being given a gun and the instructions 'shoot everything' without any real explanation. No one normal would continue travelling to all this planets shooting all these fucked up monsters without a bit of explanation as to why. Hey I'm not asking for it to be 'spoon fed,' but if you're going to go down the Final Fantasy 'lets explain all the complex shit in text form' at least let me read that shit in game - don't send me off to your website in some half-arsed attempt to generate more traffic.

The story is far from subtle and for me the game wasn't immersive at all. Subtle stories are still structured to create the mystery and lead a person through carefully crafted questions, much to do about nothing is not subtle.
If they were going for another gunt in the grinder style they could have still followed a narrative that that let the player in on some of the secrets. The issue with that is the story does in fact paint you as a main character with you personally taking part in a number of firsts such as finding Rasputin, the array, the reef deplomacy etc.

It's not about having a crazy deep story, it's about not having a lazy half assed try at nothing.

Mostly because it plays it straight with cinematics and the beginnings of a narrative, but falls flat by lazily delegating it all to dinklebot's exposition0.1.1 routine.

There are no characters you interact with in any meaningful let alone satisfying way. No characters are explored or developed, no interactions explored or developed, no reactions to your actions. Everything you do is utterly without impact. You kill a god and it feels like turning in a kill ten wolves quest. Everything which should be momentous is tragically disregarded without weight (see the video for numerous egregious examples). The city could be saved or fall and neither you or your mostly-voiceless character would give a shit except in the most abstract 'people dying is bad I guess' way. There's no emotional impact, no bonds formed. It's utterly hollow, devoid of relationships beyond your crosshair on an alien's skull. Destiny is life through the eyes of a detached sociopath. No wonder rational human beings with even a shred of empathy find it nearly impossible to relate to.

Not to mention the ludo-narrative dissonance that arises from your character obviously not being 'hot shit' if you can be so summarily ignored, 'not the main character', as you were hoping... then what exactly is the catalyst for humanity pulling itself out from huddling under the shadow of the Traveller and kicking every alien ass they see? I guess there are also hundreds of other guardians out there killing gods on all the other planets too, if what you've achieved is so unremarkable. "Hm? You killed an Archon, crippling the Fallen presence near the city? Fair'nuff. Have a belt and a couple glimmer, go get yourself something nice, look pretty for daddy."

What could inspire this sudden about-face and reversal of the fortunes of humanity? Surely it would be something of immense significance, echoes of which ripple through history to... wait. Nope, just read the grimoire to see if they put it in there, because they didn't put it in the game. Turns out: None. No reason. There is no catalyst for this remarkable change. Not you, not your fireteam, not a sudden influx of guardians (none is mentioned), not a sudden change in the capabilities and competence of ghosts, just.... humanity was cowering, now it's not, because... fuckit we just felt like it today. Next up we'll cure world hunger... if we feel like it. Or wallow in a few more centures of strife, whatever, we're easy.
Lazy storytelling.

It's not JUST that there's precious little story delivered to you, but that it was delivered so poorly.

They didn't even mention how exactly a 'human' can be dead for so long and revived by a scan from a little flying robot... What I think; Bungie wanted 12 months longer to develop and Activision said no, it gives the feel that the 'base' game is done but the details never got a chance to be put in.

Story-shmory, I made my own anyway :D
I played as the cold Exo hunter, who wants nothing more than to be a human and to find love, so sets out to find a way to bring the Travellers light back in the hope that it can make him human :D
He is yet to find love, but he fights the darkness diligently to protect the Traveller :D

Story time! I went to an all-girls’ school. My friends and I had that special bond of closeness that apparently comes with synced-up periods and measuring the length of each other’s winter leg hair.
This, obviously, led to a brief era of trying to catch one of the others unawares with the most impressive, most unexpected spank possible. We’re talking sneaking up behind each other in the hallway and laying one down that made the earth shake. If I couldn’t read your palm from the imprint, you weren’t doing a good enough job.